Thursday, February 12, 2015 at 8:00PM Pre-concert Talk by Professor Scott Burnham at 7PM Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall CHICAGO SYMPHONY WINDS Elizabeth Tiscione, Oboe Xiomara Mass, Oboe John Bruce Yeh, Clarinet Teresa Reilly, Clarinet J. Lawrie Bloom, Basset Horn Jo-Ann Sternberg, Basset Horn Miles Maner, Bassoon Drew Pattison, Bassoon Daniel Gingrich, Horn James Smelser, Horn Oto Carrillo, Horn David Griffin, Horn Daniel Armstrong, Bass ALL-MOZART (1756-1791) Serenade No. 12 for Winds in C Minor, K. 388 “Nacht Musique” Allegro Andante Menuetto Allegro —INTERMISSION— Serenade for Winds and Contrabass in B-flat Major, K. 361 “Gran Partita” Largo. Molto Allegro Menuetto Adagio Menuetto. Allegretto Romance. Adagio Tema con variazioni Finale. Molto allegro Please join us following the concert for a Late Night Chamber Jam when amateur players from our audience will join the CSO players on stage to sight read Mozart’s Wind Serenade, K. 375. ABOUT THE ARTISTS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 2014-15 SEASON ABOUT THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY WINDS The Chicago Symphony Winds were organized in 1978 by then-CSO Principal Oboist Ray Still. During the subsequent decades, the CSW performed on chamber music series and at universities around the United States and made two recordings, including the 1986 Grammy Award-nominated “Mozart: Music for Basset Horns” album on CBS Masterworks. A landmark project of the group was the presentation of the complete Wind Music of Mozart at the University of Chicago. This project was so successful that a return visit was arranged in order to present the monumental Wind Symphonies of Richard Strauss. The Chicago Symphony Winds 1983 recording of Mozart’s Serenade K. 375 and Willard Elliot’s transcription of Grieg’s Four Lyric Pieces was performed direct-to-disc for Sheffield Lab Records on the historic movie soundstage in Culver City, California, site of so many legendary MGM film classics. The Chicago Symphony Winds, now in their fourth decade, together with a new generation of Chicago Symphony Orchestra wind players and distinguished colleagues, continue to breathe life into the great masterpieces of the repertoire. ON TONIGHT’S PROGRAM By Peter Laki, ©2015 Serenades and divertimentos—the two terms cannot always be clearly separated—were music for entertainment in the 18th century. Often performed outdoors, they were not expected to plumb great emotional depths or display rare levels of compositional sophistication. They were functional pieces, often serving as background music and quite happy in that subordinate role—except, that is, when the composer’s name was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote his first serenade at the age of 13. Orchestral serenades were extremely popular in his native Salzburg, where they were regularly used at weddings, birthday parties and university functions. After his move to Vienna, Mozart wrote compositions of this type only occasionally. Therefore, the two great serenades performed at tonight’s concert, both products of the Vienna years, occupy a special place among Mozart’s works. -2- PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 2014-15 SEASON ABOUT THE PROGRAM ABOUT THE PROGRAM By Peter Laki, ©2015 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (Salzburg, 1756 – Vienna, 1791) Serenade in C Minor, K. 388 (1782) Serenade in B-flat Major, K. 361, “Gran Partita(1783-84) Serenades are not usually written in C Minor. A serenade in C Minor is even something of a contradiction in terms, given the light-hearted nature of the genre, usually destined for some type of festive, celebratory occasion and thus the dark, even tragic connotations carried by the minor mode, and C Minor in particular, are noteworthy. Yet Mozart would not let A. DERKS CAROL BY ILLUSTRATION his imagination be restricted by such considerations, and he attempted a bold stylistic “crossover” with this wind octet, an ambitious work written for the Harmoniemusik, or wind ensemble, at the court of Emperor Joseph II. The work’s serious character is reflected by the fact that it is in four movements -3- ABOUT THE PROGRAM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 2014-15 SEASON like a symphony, rather than six or more like most serenades and divertimentos. The frequent unisons, diminished, seventh sonorities and sudden sforzatos (accents) are typical features of the dramatic “storm and stress” style found in many minor- mode symphonies and chamber works from the 1770’s and ‘80s. It should come as no surprise that of all of his wind serenades, this is the one that announcing the Mozart reworked five years later, in 1787, as a string quintet with two violas Creative (K. 406). Reactions Contest The third-movement minuet is a strict A Creative Writing Contest canon between the oboes and the for Princeton Students bassoons. Haydn’s Symphony No. 47 WIN $1000 FOR WRITING may have served as a model for the ABOUT THIS CONCERT! “Trio in canone al rovescio” (Trio in inverted canon) in the third movement The Creative Reactions Contest of Mozart’s work. In this trio, the is a new creative writing contest designed to foster reflection on the first oboe’s melody is an inversion of impact of classical music, as perceived the second oboe part—that is, each by Princeton students. Submit a ascending interval is replaced by a written reaction to this concert, or descending interval of the same size, other PUC concerts this month for a and vice versa. The two bassoons play chance to win $1000! The winning their own inverted canon against that piece will also be published. of the oboes—a learned artifice not For more information, visit usually associated with the serenade princetonuniversityconcerts.org. genre. The contest is hosted by the Student Ambassadors of Princeton University Concerts. The other movements are in standard forms: sonata form in the first two, and a theme-and-variation in the finale, where the previous tensions are finally -4- PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 2014-15 SEASON ABOUT THE PROGRAM resolved by a much-awaited switch to the major mode—though not before the very end of the piece. The Serenade in B flat for 13 instruments is the last Mozart work to use that title (recent research indicates that it was written after the C-Minor Serenade, which Köchel had placed later in his chronological catalog.) The work was commissioned by clarinetist Anton Stadler, for whom Mozart later wrote his clarinet quintet (K. 581) and concerto (K. 622). Stadler’s group performed four of the movements in Vienna in March 1784. Scored for two oboes, two clarinets, two basset horns (lower-pitched clarinets), 4 horns, 2 bassoons and double bass, the Serenade uses an instrumentation eminently suited for outdoor performances (although Stadler’s partial premiere took place at the National Court Theater). The title “Gran Partita,” which appears in the manuscript (but not written in Mozart’s hand) refers to outdoor music for winds according to the usage of the day. Enjoy a sweet nibble before the Late Night Chamber Jam... We are pleased to thank our community partner McCAFFREY’S FOOD MARKET for the donation of the cookies, free to patrons in the lobby immediately following the concert. -5- ABOUT THE PROGRAM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 2014-15 SEASON The work has seven movements. The first, a sonata allegro, begins with a striking Largo introduction that combines solemn and lyrical elements. The second-movement minuet has two trios, resulting in the scheme Minuet – Trio I – Minuet – Trio II – Minuet. The second Trio is in the darker minor mode. The third movement is the heart piece of the work. Even among Mozart’s compositions, this Adagio stands out for its atmospheric beauty, the unique sound colors resulting from the alternating solos for clarinet, basset horn and oboe against a palpitating rhythmic accompaniment. The fourth movement, another minuet, differs in character from the first one: the earlier movement emphasized grace and suppleness while the second one is more determined and energetic. Again, there are two trios, the first of which is in the key of B-flat minor, a key Mozart almost never used. It is a dramatic and turbulent episode in an otherwise cloudless movement. The fifth movement is a “Romance” in Adagio tempo with a faster middle section that sounds light and playful despite its C-minor tonality that is usually associated with more somber moods. Next comes a theme with six variations that puts the virtuosity of the entire ensemble to a test; the closing Rondo, finally, is sparkling and cheerful throughout, with a minor-mode episode in Mozart’s so-called “Turkish” idiom (well known from the A-major piano sonata, the A-major Violin Concerto and the opera The Abduction from the Seraglio). -6- PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 2014-2015 SEASON READ MORE ABOUT MOZART.... t is a common article of faith that IMozart composed the most beautiful music we can know. But few of us ask why. Why does the beautiful in Mozart stand apart, as though untouched by human hands? At the same time, why does it inspire intimacy rather than distant admiration, love rather than awe? And how does Mozart’s music create and sustain its buoyant and ever-renewable effects? We recommend reading Mozart’s Grace, written by Professor Scott Burnham (tonight’s pre-concert speaker). In it, he probes a treasury of passages from many different genres of Mozart’s music, listening always for the qualities of Mozartean beauty: beauty held in suspension; beauty placed in motion; beauty as the uncanny threshold of another dimension, whether inwardly profound or outwardly transcendent; and beauty as a time-stopping, weightless suffusion that comes on like an act of grace. Scott Burnham is the Scheide Professor of Music History at Princeton University, and he is one of our favorite pre-concert speakers.